US pediatrician: “The transgender movement has no scientific basis”

Pediatric endocrinologist, Dr Quentin Van Meter, speaking at the Australian Family Associations Sydney office on 13 August 2018. Dr Van Meter runs his own pediatric clinic in Atalanta, Georgia, in the USA. PHOTO: Giovanni Portelli

The transgender movement is not based on “a shred of scientific evidence,” a US pediatric endocrinologist has said during a recent visit to Sydney.

While emphasisng the need to extend compassion and respect for those struggling with their sexual identity, Dr Quentin Van Meter—who has treated numerous children and young people confused about their sexual identity over several decades—said the transgender movement has no scientific basis whatsoever and is “a social movement dressed up as science.”

Furthermore, he said the irreversible procedures performed on children, such as puberty-blockers and “corrective surgery,” which help a child to transition to the opposite sex, constitute “child abuse”.

Dr Van Meter, who is based in Atlanta, Georgia—where he operates his own pediatric clinic—is currently on a speaking tour of Australia at the invitation of the National Civic Council. He is on the clinical faculty of two medical schools and is a member of the American College of Pediatricians.

He said the purpose of his tour of Australia is to explain the origins of the transgender movement and to call for a return to science-based treatment of those suffering from confusion about their sexual identity.

“Sex is binary. From the moment of conception you are male or female,” Dr Van Meter told The Catholic Weekly.

“There are very few incidences in nature where there is a combination of both XY and XX cell lines in the same human being. And those patients very interestingly do not have any concern or question about ‘gender identity’. They are all one or all the other and it matches their biological body as it presents itself.”

A sign protesting the North Carolina law restricting transgender bathroom access adorns the bathroom stalls in 2016 at the 21C Museum Hotel in Durham, N.C. PHOTO: CNS/Jonathan Drake, Reuters

“So the concept of ‘gender identity’ [as opposed to biological sexual identity] being an inborn thing has no basis in science whatsoever. None.”

Drawing on his 38 year experience practising as an endocrinologist, and 42 as a pediatrician, Dr Van Meter said confusion about sexual identity is caused by emotional trauma usually experienced during childhood or adolescence.

“I have not seen a single transgender patient, a child, who has come into my office who had not experienced very significant emotional distress, from what we call Adverse Childhood Events, or ACE’s.”

“This can be from the death of a parent, a divorce between parents, it can be from being sexually abused. All of those things are essentially life-changing events that a child does not know how to handle. So the child uses the concept of being in the wrong body as an answer to their discomfort.”

People suffering from this type of emotional trauma need to be treated primarily with counselling, Dr Van Meter said.

What is needed, he said, is “intensive evaluation of the undercurrent traumatic events that led the child to use this [sexual identity confusion] as an answer to their mental anguish.”

He said this type of science-based treatment of the underlying emotional trauma through counselling leads the child to eventually accept their biological identity.

“When that happens [counselling] 98 per cent of boys and more than 80 per cent of girls return to their identity, their actual biological sex, and part of that is going through puberty.”

National Civic Council staff and supporters at their Sydney office with Dr Quentin Van Meter, far left, and Mr Pat Byrne, far right, National President of the NCC. PHOTO: Giovanni Portelli

“The events of puberty are key and essential to heal the patient.”

Following the treatments pushed by the transgender movement, such as puberty-blockers at the onset of puberty, and so-called corrective surgery to transition to the opposite sex, lead to lifelong infertility, emotional scarring and medical dependency, he said.

“If you block puberty at the onset of true puberty you’re going against the physiological nature of what puberty is meant to do.”

“As you hold them there in that state of non-puberty their bodies are are growing but they’re missing all the things that puberty is supposed to do. Then you flip them and put them on the opposite hormones and you create absolute and utter infertility for a lifetime.”

Once the transition to the opposite sex has been completed, it is virtually impossible to reverse, he said.

“It is difficult to go back because of the disfigurement emotionally, and of the body.”

The suicide rate among those who have transitioned is twenty times greater than the general population, he added.

Dr Van Meter’s address was at the National Civic Council’s office in Glebe on 13 August, when a book on the topic of the transgender movement was also launched.

Mr Pat Byrne, National President of the National Civic Council at the launch of his book, Transgender: One Shade of Grey. PHOTO: Giovanni Portelli

Transgender: One Shade of Grey by Patrick Byrne, considers the legal consequences for men and women, schools, sporting competitions, politics and democracy caused by acceptance of the transgender movement’s demands.

Mr Byrne, who is President of the National Civic Council, said that the “ideology of transgenderism is now changing laws.”

He referred to transgendered men competing against women in sporting competitions and taking advantage of affirmative action to replace women in parliaments.

“In the name of equality we now have the worst form of patriarchy we’ve perhaps ever seen,” Mr Byrne said.

Echoing Dr Van Meter, Mr Byrne said the transgender movement had no scientific basis whatsoever and is in fact a form of “belief”.

He described it as a “pseudo religion… turning democracy into a totalitarian state” through anti-discrimination laws enacted at the federal level to eliminate references to males and females and entrench gender fluidity.

The solution to this situation, Mr Byrne said, is to write the terms “male” and “female” back into law.

Transgender: One Shade of Grey is available for $39.99 at shop.newsweekly.com.au

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